unRAID or not unRAID, thats the question


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Hi there,

i found out about unraid on linus techtips. 

 

Since 3 years i own a debian server with plex, dyndns and some backup space (SMB).

 

But its old, loud and takes much energy. I have an 19" Rack.

 

I saw that lime technology is even selling a finished server, how is it?

 

Can i go with the cheapest while using plex on it? (transcoding 1 or max 2 streams?)

 

How much money i can safe when i build it myself? Is it worth it? (but i want that energy saving and fan throttling, my old server just pushes 100% all the time)

 

What i read on the forums, the APP docker doenst take that much resources, so maybe i can use it instead of using a debian, but some questions:

 

- I know there is a app for Plex :)

- is there a app which updates my dyndns account? i use .ddns.net (i dont really want to change that!)

- is there a app which could backup all my data (plex and everything) to amazon drive? 

 

 

General questions:

- I think about 5 TB Parity, 250GB SSD Cache (bc of this i get full write speed? 1Gbits?!), and unlimited (besides hardware)  5TB HDDs for storage? 

- If one drive fail, i can just remove it and move antoher HDD into it and unraid will rebuild? Also if parity drive fails? 

- If i have 2 parity drives, 2 drives can fail?

Edited by nuhll
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14 hours ago, nuhll said:

- is there a app which updates my dyndns account? i use .ddns.net (i dont really want to change that!)

DDCLIENT is an app thats listed in the Community Applications. It works for me. 

 

14 hours ago, nuhll said:

- I think about 5 TB Parity, 250GB SSD Cache (bc of this i get full write speed? 1Gbits?!), and unlimited (besides hardware)  5TB HDDs for storage? 

- If one drive fail, i can just remove it and move antoher HDD into it and unraid will rebuild? Also if parity drive fails? 

- If i have 2 parity drives, 2 drives can fail?

1. Unlimited depending on the license you purchase and the limitations of the software.  You should read the FAQ at the bottom of the buy-it page. https://lime-technology.com/buy-it/ specifically the section " What are “assignable” devices? "

2. Hot-swap is not supported. you would need to follow this guide to replace a drive. https://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php/Replacing_a_Data_Drive

3. Yes, but the rebuild of 2 drives at the same time may cause too much stress on the entire system due to alot of writes operations occurring. Always good to have backup's handy in those situations. 

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To clarify a bit on robw83's answers:

 

1. Yeah that's right.

2. True hot-swap, where you can yank old drive, plug in new drive, then have it auto-rebuild, while all the while server is still fully operational, is currently not supported.  However "warm swap", where you Stop array first, swap drive without powering-off, refresh browser and assign new drive, then Start array (and start rebuild) is supported if your h/w supports it.

3. Not sure what is meant by "too much stress" - not sure I agree with that. O.o

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I have to chime in on this too. I constantly read about "insert any OS here" and how drive rebuild puts so much stress on everything.

I'm not trying to be rude but your talking about your drives reading and writing. This is what they are designed to do. If they can't handle it, they should be replaced with drives that can handle doing the job they were designed for.

Think of it this way. You buy a new car and you only drive it down to the grocery store but never on vacation cause a longer drive than back and forth to store is just too much stress on the drivetrain. This is just a silly argument. I'm off my soapbox now :)


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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Actually drive rebuild puts hardly any "stress" on devices because it's a sequential operation from beginning to end.  It might put extra stress on your power supply since it requires all drives to be spun up and seeking (though on drives not being accessed for any other purpose, these are tiny track-to-track seeks).  However, if your PSU is not up to the task of parity sync/rebuild it is waaaay under-spec'ed.

 

Lesson: when it comes to PSU always get highest quality you can find and more than you think you need.

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1 hour ago, robw83 said:

Thanks for the correction. I was always told that a rebuild puts alot of stress on the other drives.  That's why I always just had that extra precaution of keeping backups handy when I'm in that position. 

You should always have backups of anything important in any case.

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  • 1 month later...

Yeah, there comes my next question.

 

I have a poroblem with backup.

 

I dont have one... :) (the files are not important tho, only videos, pictures and so on)

 

When i build an unraid machine i want to make it right, so i would like to backup my files to some cloud services like amazon or what ever. Problem is, with my internet connection i need to upload 24/7 for half a year for 10 TB. :):):) are there solutions to this? Or, can i get help here in the forum with setting this up? I thought about uploading in the night. But i want to the files to be crypted.

Edited by nuhll
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33 minutes ago, nuhll said:

I have a poroblem with backup.

You might have a problem without it! :D

 

Considering the amount of data you have to backup, you'd be better off with

backups to hard disks and off-site storage in a suitable enclosure, checksums and regular disk test etc.

@garycase is a specialist in this domain iirc. :)

Maybe he can link to one of his "best practices" posts!?

 

I hate ADSL also - no chance to backup bigger things off-site through the wire.

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